IF (ThisProduct IS IN ANY ConfigurableProduct) redirect(ThatConfigurableProduct) - magento

Question

That's pretty much what I'm trying to do. All of my simple products are part of, at most, 1 configurable product, so there's no possibility for issues there.
This is necessary because I want my simple products (pillow in design X, color Y) to show in search, catalog but I need the user to know that the design exists in different colors once they click (presumably because they like design X but aren't necessarily sold on color Y). Further, my implementation of Color Swatches (extension) is causing my simple products (that are part of configurables) to behave funnily when accessed directly.
Thanks for any help.
Edit:
Here's the code I ended up using. I'm not a very good coder so make sure to improve it before deploying... (~In app/design/frontend/blah/blah/template/catalog/product/view.media.phtml)
<?php
/* THIS BLOCK ADDED BY __ ON 5/5/2011 */
$thisProductId = $_product['entity_id'];
$thisProductParentId = Mage::getResourceSingleton('catalog/product_type_configurable')->getParentIdsByChild($thisProductId);
if (!$thisProductParentId)
{
?>
<div class="more-views">
<h2><?php echo $this->__('More Views') ?></h2>
<ul>
<?php foreach ($this->getGalleryImages() as $_image): ?>
<li>
<img src="<?php echo $this->helper('catalog/image')->init($this->getProduct(), 'thumbnail', $_image->getFile())->resize(56); ?>" width="56" height="56" alt="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_image->getLabel()) ?>" />
</li>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
</div>
<?php
}
else if ($thisProductParentId)
{
$_product_temp = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($thisProductParentId);
if($_product_temp->getStatus()==1)
{
$_categories = $_product_temp->getCategoryIds();
$_category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($_categories[0]);
$url = $this->getUrl($_category->getUrlPath()).$_product_temp->getUrlPath();
echo '<h1><a style="color:red;" href="'.$url.'">Click here to view this pillow design in different colors and styles.</a></h1>';
// redirect disabled because it won't preload the new color on the configurable image page anyway. (haven't attempted)
/* echo '<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
window.location = "'.$url.'"
//-->
</script>'; */
}
}
// -- end --
?>
The overwriting of the More Images gallery bit is a project-specific customization, so keep that in mind.

Answer 1

I went and wrote a bunch of code to try to do this, and forgot that this is already a simple use case, and Magento has it written for you:
Mage::getResourceSingleton('catalog/product_type_configurable')
->getParentIdsByChild($childId);
That snippet should give you all parent products for the child. If there is one, redirect to it. Otherwise, render the page as requested.

Answer 2

you have two options here :
add rewrite rules form catalog > url rewrite management
program an extension that makes the necessary check against product database and makes the redirect