The basic structure of your GroupLayout would be similar to this code :
JPanel pnl = new JPanel();
GroupLayout l = new GroupLayout(pnl);
pnl.setLayout(l);
JButton b1 = new JButton("1");
JButton b2 = new JButton("2");
JButton b3 = new JButton("3");
l.setHorizontalGroup(
l.createSequentialGroup()
.addComponent(b1)
.addGroup(l.createParallelGroup()
.addComponent(b2)
.addComponent(b3)));
l.setVerticalGroup(
l.createParallelGroup()
.addComponent(b1)
.addGroup(l.createSequentialGroup()
.addComponent(b2)
.addComponent(b3)));
JFrame f = new JFrame("test");
f.setContentPane(pnl);
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
f.setSize(1024, 768);
f.setVisible(true);
In plain english, the constraint on the horizontal axis reads "b1, then b2 and b3 in parallel". The constraint on the vertical axis reads "b1 in parallel with a group composed of b1 then b2".
Obviously, the resizability properties are mising, here. You need to give more details on how you want the component to behave regarding their size.
One possibility would be to give the two small components the whole vertical space, but to give them only their prefered horizontal space. And of course, give the big component the remaining space.
l.setHorizontalGroup(
l.createSequentialGroup()
.addComponent(b1, 0, GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, Short.MAX_VALUE)
.addGroup(l.createParallelGroup()
.addComponent(b2, 0, GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE)
.addComponent(b3, 0, GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, GroupLayout.PREFERRED_SIZE)));
l.setVerticalGroup(
l.createParallelGroup()
.addComponent(b1, 0, GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, Short.MAX_VALUE)
.addGroup(l.createSequentialGroup()
.addComponent(b2, 0, GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, Short.MAX_VALUE)
.addComponent(b3, 0, GroupLayout.DEFAULT_SIZE, Short.MAX_VALUE)));
Note that the structure is the same than the first code, only the size parameters were added.